Matthew's 3rd Birthday

Ready to take his cake to school for celebrating
with his school friends on Friday the 6th. 

It's hard to believe our sweet boy is already three.

He requested a "horsey cake
with a chocolate horse."
Mama obliged. 

His birthday fell at the beginning of Emmy's fall break, so we decided to wait and have his party a little later. That way, we were able to take advantage of the opportunity to travel for the break to the U.K. More on that later.

Matthew makes us laugh a lot. He still loves horses and cowboys. Anything is subject to being a target of his "lasso." You'll hear him playing on his rocking horse or with some of his toy horses saying "yah, yah, yah!"

His love of Bubble Guppies and Sofia the First (he loved the flying horses) has waned, he now likes Scooby Doo and he's recently seen the Cars movies over a couple of sick days and he's now a big fan of Lightening McQueen and the other characters from the movie. 

Friday afternoon was "Pasowanie", the official
welcome into the class for the year. Matthew is
in Biedronek class this year, Ladybug class. 

One of his favorite books is Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, and he'll be sure to point out any bulldozers or "diggers" he sees when we are out and about. I love to hear him "read" some of his other favorites to me, which include Brown Bear, Brown Bear, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Dragons Love Tacos, just to name a few. Like his big sister he really loves to be read to. Stories are a sacred part of bedtime in this house!

He loves his school. He moved up this summer to the next class, so now he's in the "Biedronek" (Ladybird/Ladybug) class in the other school building. He gets to take karate and dancing at school and they do lots of crafts. He learns German (and they have English lessons but he's pretty set with English, haha). His teachers are very sweet, they don't speak much English this year but I know they love him. Agnieszka told me that they asked him recently "Matthew, do you love Ms. Agnieszka" and he said "noooo" and they said "Do you love Ms. Magda" and he said "Noooo" and they they asked "Well, who do you love?" and he said "Mama!" Which is totally not true, but it gave us all a laugh. He is a Mama's boy! But he also loves his Daddy and wants Daddy to play all the things with him.

He is  really interested in letters and sounds. He's good at remembering things. He already is alternating feet when he goes up and down stairs some when the stairs aren't too wide for him, and he's starting to skip (both are which are precursors to reading). He's very advanced, haha. He's also stubborn. Really, really stubborn. Gee, I have no idea where he gets that from!  He's not potty trained because he just refuses to use the potty. He knows, and he'll ask for a clean diaper just so he can potty in it. It is SO frustrating and I'm trying really hard to be patient because I know he'll do it one day. I just wish it would be soon. 

Trying to capture one of his "explantion" faces.

He makes hilarious faces when he's talking to you about things. He has all sorts of stories to tell and opinions to give.  Mostly he talks to us in English, with some Polish mixed in or a little Danish or German if he's around people speaking those languages. "Thank you" and "please" are almost always in Polish. He is so Polish now he doesn't like his milk cold (Poles don't give kids cold drinks, they think it will make them sick or something). It was funny at first, now it's super annoying, but we do it because we love him and it's just one of those things that's easier not to argue about.

Birthday present time! 

Matthew loves his big sister, and she loves him. I absolutely love watching their relationship grow and I hope they will continue to be friends. Sure, I know they'll argue and disagree and have different interests as they grow up, but I hope this bond lasts and they can support each other and be friends.

We sure do love this boy of ours, he continues to bring us loads of joy. This next year is going to bring lot of transitions for him, Moving back to the U.S. will be a big deal for all of us, but for him, he'll be leaving the only country he's really known as home! It's strange, but exciting at the same time.

New fences and a new horse and accessories. So exciting! 

In one of the malls near us, a few days before his birthday. Charles said he was getting ready for our U.K. adventure! 

Our little traveler on the evening of his birthday, getting ready to fly to London! 

Emmy is 8!

Emmy turned 8 years old yesterday! So this blog turns 8 years old today!

This year we decided to celebrate a little differently and have a small sleepover with two of her friends instead of a big party. We went to Spain last week (more about that soon), so in the end not having a big birthday party turned out to be good for Mom's planning sanity. Ha!

All in all, I think she had a great birthday weekend!

The Saturday before her birthday, she had two friends, Freja and Iza, over for a sleepover. I took them to the trampoline park nearby for an hour. Then they came home for pizza and a movie, enjoying their spa bags I'd put together and playing with make up (Emmy recently received a bunch of make up from our friend Katie, who was cleaning out her stores of beauty products). They made ice cream sundaes and watched some more of the movie and had their slumber party in the living room. The next morning, the parents of both friends (Freja's parents are some of our best friends here, we're with them all the time) and our friends Chris and Michelle and Katie came over for brunch. Of course, we had Emmy's favorite biscuits and sausage gravy, along with quiche, fruit, and grits. It was a different sort of birthday party this year but I think she had a really good time. It was fun to do something smaller.

Spa bags!

They loved their spa bags! 

As soon as they had eaten their popcorn and pizza, they were upstairs to play with their spa bags and put on make up. 

Ice cream sundaes!

Matthew LOVED having two extra big girls around. When Emmy hopped up, he quickly settled down in the middle between the other girls. Emmy made him move back up to the sofa upon her return. Also, note he also wanted a sleep mask. Fortunately, they came two to a pack so he could have his own. 

She requested carrot cake for her birthday, so I made mini cupcakes, which was perfect for brunch. 

Birthday morning! She got to open one small gift before breakfast. 

Impossible to get them to both look at me. Matty's hair is pretty typical of mornings around here. 

She wanted chocolate cake for her class. 

Pictures from her teacher! Can you tell I fell on the stairs carrying the cake up to her classroom? 

Birthday dinner, Michelle's recipe for chicken and dumplings. Fortunately Mom making it was still acceptable. 

More presents! Some clothes, a wallet she'd picked out in the Netherlands, and a new jewelry box for her jewelry, to include new earrings for her soon-to-be-pierced ears. 

Opening her necklace from SuSu and Big Daddy (they are on skype, you just can't see them). It is a pearl earring of SuSu's that's mate went missing, so she had it turned into a pendant, and the chain was Grandmommie's (her great-grandmother). 

We can't believe this girl is eight years old now! She is, by far, the best big sister any little brother could ever ask for. He adores her and she is wonderful with him. She is patient (most of the time), loving, plays with him, shows him things and teaches him things. It is delightful to see. She is smart and funny and observant. She still asks a million questions and wants to know how things work. She still sings all the time, I always say she was born with a song in her heart. She loves science and wanted a chemistry set and microscope for her birthday. She still loves babies, both dolls and real ones. She is going to be a great baby-sitter one day in the future. She is super excited to get her ears pierced soon. She still loves the beach and had a great time in Mallorca the other week with our friends, finding shells, building sandcastles and splashing in the water. She was also wonderful with their three little boys and they enjoyed being bossed around and mommy-ed by her.  Charles and I are pretty lucky we get to be her parents Happy 8th Birthday, Emmy! 

Time for a reboot

Update 5 March:
I posted some photos from a day at the beach here!
Update 26 February:
I posted the back to school photos here! 

Hi folks, we're back!

Where have we been? Well, we've been around! Since I stopped in the middle of working on a post about the rest of our Easter trip (which I have published here, finally, by the way), we've been living our lives here in Poland and traveling when possible. In July we went to Krakow. In July and August we took a two week vacation to Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic, Vienna, the Plitvice Lakes National Park, Dubrovnik, Split, and Rovinj in Croatia, Lake Bled and the Lipizzaner Stallion Farm in Lipica, Slovenia. Then we went to Copenhagen with friends. In October during fall break we took a trip down to Bavaria and saw Garmisch, Mad King Ludwig's castle, Neuschwanstein, better known as the inspiration for Cinderella's castle at Disney World, Munich, and Salzburg. When Aunt Sarah came to visit in December she and I spent some time in Berlin, and we all spent a couple of days traveling to Dresden and Bolesławiec. When Aunt Mer and Uncle Steve came after Christmas we went back to Krakow, then to Budapest, Slovakia, Prague, and Berlin. Over Emmy's recent winter break between the school terms, we went down to Graf, the U.S. post closest to us, and also Rothenburg and Nürnberg. It's been quite a year.

So, where have I been? Well, I have to be honest, on April 13th we got some unhappy news: Charles wasn't going to appear on the promotion list to Lieutenant Colonel that was being released the next day. We were shocked, disappointed, upset. Neither of us wanted to be overly confident, we knew it was a possibility, but he'd been given this job because he was "in the top third" of his year group. I certainly did not understand fully what it meant if this came to be. Because this was his "primary zone" look for LTC, meaning the year that he would be expected to be promoted and his best chance of being selected, then he only gets one more look. The chances are much smaller that he will get promoted, and if he does not, then he gets kicked out of the Army. Frankly, folks, this has felt like a punch in the gut. After years of service and being encouraged along and being promoted two years early to major, it is deeply disappointing. I really struggled with this news and it really caused me to grieve and caused me to deal with depression like I haven't in years. That may sound dramatic, but I have learned once you have dealt with deep grief, new losses can make those feelings bubble up again stronger than you imagined. This is a life that we've both been devoted to, I spent hundreds, probably thousands of hours volunteering, and gave up career opportunities. To have it all come to an end not on our terms is a blow. We can speculate as to why this happened, but we don't really know. He did all the right things, he just got caught up in numbers and likely he was actually at a disadvantage because he was promoted so early. Unfair, but then we've long ago learned that life isn't fair.

This news affects our family in many significant ways.  It means we could lose his retirement, although he should have no trouble applying for the early retirement program that is temporarily in effect. But even that will not be a significantly smaller retirement pay. It means deciding where to try and settle down, looking for a forever house sooner, having less time to save for that forever house. I have less time to decide if I want to go back to school before he retires. It means we won't know if or where we are moving until this summer, when this year's promotion list is released.  It has meant feeling like we are in a permanent state of limbo. I honestly couldn't bring myself to come back to this space to write about it, and it kept me from blogging about anything else. Sure, we have had a lot of fun these last few months, don't get me wrong, but as a friend who is in a similar situation has said, it cast a gray cloud over everything.

So, I'm sorry. We're here. I'm back at it. I've started this post probably 20 times in the last 10 months, but here it is. I'll continue to try and post photos from our adventures. We've got a lot more coming up, as we're trying to pack it in before we potentially move this summer. The kids are happy and healthy and keep us on our toes. We've celebrated birthdays and holidays and enjoyed watching them grow in this international environment.

One thing is for sure, we miss you all terribly and we hope you are well. I'll close this post with our Valentine for 2017 (which should be arriving to you soon, if they have not already), as we send our love from across the globe.